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ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

biblioracle.substack.com

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Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#141

Post by efitz »

criddell wrote: post #119
fhd2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same worry. Another example: Is furniture nowadays more beautiful and durable than it used to be 100 years ago? Is there more variety now? Not in my book. Same goes for a lot of products that are now produced in the cheapest way possible at scale. Looks very much like a race to the bottom dominated by a few big players to me. Consumers don't seem to care that much.

Your example is true only if you include the criteria that it be affordable. You can probably get any furniture you want made locally or by a highly skilled person far away who is willing to ship to you. 100 years ago, how much did the family dinner table cost? Would you measure it in hours or days of salary? When that family in 1923 went table shopping, they were either going to buy from a company like Sears Roebuck…

Exactly. What we’ve done is not lower the quality bar on “excellent”, we’ve actually raised the quality bar on “cheap”.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#142

Post by tikhonj »

fhd2 wrote: post #79
_petronius wrote: post #14

I'm less worried about stuff like ChatGPT killing things off, but more about just making everything noticeably a bit worse. To take an analogy: bad voice recognition software abounds everywhere, not because it is better than what it replaced in terms of UX, but because it works just enough and allows massive cost-savings on hiring people to do customer service jobs. A world where most marketing copy is written by med…

I have the same worry. Another example: Is furniture nowadays more beautiful and durable than it used to be 100 years ago? Is there more variety now? Not in my book. Same goes for a lot of products that are now produced in the cheapest way possible at scale. Looks very much like a race to the bottom dominated by a few big players to me. Consumers don't seem to care that much.

There's absolutely beautiful and durable furniture available, it's just a lot more expensive than Ikea. There's a local place that makes furniture on-demand; as far as I can tell, the quality is great, but we're talking $8–10k for a dining table. That segment of the market still exists and I don't see it going anywhere.

Cheap, mass-produced furniture has taken the bottom of the market but there really is a wide variety available today.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#143

Post by whimsicalism »

randomdata wrote: post #25
causality0 wrote: post #8

I'm coming around to the idea that in general the more bullshit something is the easier it is for AI to disrupt.

Yet when AI learned to wash dishes in the home (among other tasks), freeing up a homemaker's time to join the workforce, it seems the labor market absorbed the influx in people largely by creating bullshit jobs.

Let's not use "AI" to mean "machines."

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#144

Post by impalallama »

debacle wrote: post #34

I see two big problems with GPT: 1. It presents information really well that is completely false. I don't know exactly how it works under the hood, but sometimes it spits out paragraphs that read like the fever dreams of a flat earther. 2. It will cause our communication skills to further atrophy. Maybe in an innocuous way (no one memorizes epic poems anymore), but with GPT I think it will make people less likely to…

The more esoteric the information I'm asking the more likely it will tell me something that sounds right but all the specifics are wrong.

As a test I asked for the world record speedrun for pokemon yellow, it made up a time associated with a runner who didn't exist yet the time was still rough 20 minute ballpark of what the any% time was in 2021. Bizarre stuff.

I expect it will raise up a lot of writing to low bar of competent but voiceless. Which would actually be an improvement on many SEO spam blogs.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#145

Post by [deleted] »

gnulinux wrote: post #89
krustyburger wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that is a significant improvement. I’m a native English speaker and I may start using ChatGPT for this purpose too.

"Significant" improvement? Really? They're almost the same but ChatGPT version removed some of the nuance such as `"approved"` vs `reviewed and approved`. I prefer the human-written version even with the grammar errors.

[deleted]

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#146

Post by low_common »

heavyset_go wrote: post #20
_petronius wrote: post #14

I'm less worried about stuff like ChatGPT killing things off, but more about just making everything noticeably a bit worse. To take an analogy: bad voice recognition software abounds everywhere, not because it is better than what it replaced in terms of UX, but because it works just enough and allows massive cost-savings on hiring people to do customer service jobs. A world where most marketing copy is written by med…

Subtitles got noticably worse now that their generation is often farmed out to AI, especially in translations. Drives me nuts as someone who likes using subtitles.

Subtitles have never been better idk what you're smoking

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#147

Post by visarga »

kibwen wrote: post #44
heavyset_go wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If history is any indicator, the last group of middle class professionals who decided to take this question into their own hands ended up getting executed by the state or exiled to penal colonies[1]. The rest of them, and their families, ended up dying in utter destitution. That's what "we" will probably do again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite#Government_response

When will ChatGPT replace C-suite executives, I wonder? Just think of the savings!

Why stop at C-suite? A bunch of chatGPT agents working together could operate a company fully automated.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#148

Post by LightG »

I don't mind AI killing off anything and everything, as long it goes hand in hand with producing the means for those whose jobs are killed off to survive and thrive.

I want my warm, sunny hill where I can discuss philosophy if I so choose with some bread wine, after which I'll play old arcade games and then work on a classic car, after which I'll make love to my wife.

Can you ask chatGPT if it can arrange for that, please?

* wakes up *

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#149

Post by christkv »

harveywi wrote: post #30
christkv wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what do we do with all the middle class human bs generators today once a lot of pr, journalism, copy and marketing is replaced?

Should be possible to train them all as scrum masters.

Now that is truly a scary thing. What is worse than a scrum master, a bitter ex journalist scrum master.

Re: ChatGPT Can't Kill Anything Worth Preserving

#150

Post by jerf »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #74
_petronius wrote: post #14

I'm less worried about stuff like ChatGPT killing things off, but more about just making everything noticeably a bit worse. To take an analogy: bad voice recognition software abounds everywhere, not because it is better than what it replaced in terms of UX, but because it works just enough and allows massive cost-savings on hiring people to do customer service jobs. A world where most marketing copy is written by med…

Trading quality for price has been happening everywhere for long enough that it is easy to see how unfortunately it will now play out in the arts as well. I mean, not that long ago all clothes you wore were custom made by a tailor, all the music you listened to was played live by musicians, all stories were brought to life in front of you by theatre actors: now all of those while still available are significantly mor…

Also have to consider the kicking of the ladder away. Nobody gets to excellent without passing through the lower stages. Hard to stay motivated if it'll be 5 years just to see if maybe you have something a computer can't offer.

Not impossible, but definitely a raising of the bar.

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